


Always 1895

by Aurora_Kira



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: 5+1 Has Been Done to Death But the Author Likes Them Anyway, Angsty Goodness but Wait There’s More, How Many Different Ways Can the Author Kill John Watson?, John and Sherlock Heart Each Other, M/M, Old Poetry Kicks Ass, “Who Never Lived and So Can Never Die”
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-13
Updated: 2012-04-13
Packaged: 2017-11-03 14:57:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/382597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aurora_Kira/pseuds/Aurora_Kira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a slow downward roll of the car, then a sudden stop and a splash, and John’s thrown forward in the boot. He starts struggling a little more earnestly, listening with dread to the gushing gurgle of water flowing. The front of the car tips downward and he can feel it bob a bit. The rushing gets louder. The radio is now playing Adele’s <em>Someone Like You</em>, and he’s so incredibly calm that he can think <em>Well, at least it’s a song I actually like</em>. His impending demise now has a soundtrack. He wants to giggle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always 1895

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [221B](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/7857) by Vincent Starrett. 



_It happened like this…_

In the last few moments before he dies, John’s personal timeline goes off the grid. He had previously believed that the stories people told about time slowing down while they had near-death experiences were bollocks, primarily because he’d had his own near-death experience and he didn’t remember any “eternity” when he could mull over his whole life and all his regrets. Looked like there was some truth to it, though, because it turns out he has plenty of time to realize what’s about to happen. He’s got two trains of thought running at once on parallel tracks, apparently totally unaffected by each other. (He erroneously decides that this must be how people with dissociative identity disorder feel.)

The first train is being run by his physician’s brain, which proceeds to catalog all his injuries, one by one. Broken left tib/fib, dislocated left knee, probably from the initial impact of the car. Fractured right hip, shattered right femur, severed femoral artery, all from the secondary impact when he was thrown a good twenty feet and slammed into the curb. At least two broken ribs and a punctured lung on the same side, and what he’d bet is a hemothorax based on the way he’s making a whistling noise whenever he breathes and the bubbling blood he can taste on his lips. He doesn’t think he’s going to make it till the ambulance comes, and he’s right.

John knows he really has bigger problems at the moment, but the other train of thought is obsessed with the fact that Sherlock’s long gone by now, chasing after that cab. He can’t even tell whether Sherlock stopped to look around when John got hit or if he just kept running. Why does he even care? He barely knows the man. Still, he has the weirdest sense of déjà vu at the knowledge that Sherlock’s left him behind. Even lying here with the last of his blood flowing away, he wants to get up and follow him, see what was going to happen next. It’s irritating that he’s not going to find out.

He’s got quite a crowd gathering around him now, jostling each other to get a better view of the dying man, taking pictures. A couple of people are using their cell phones to call for emergency services, which helps restore his faith in humanity a little. His vision’s starting to darken, his fingers and toes going first cold, then numb. His head feels heavy and he finds he can’t muster the strength to turn it, not that there’s anything he needs to be looking at anyway.

He’s suddenly filled with the greatest sense of loss he’s ever known, so enormous that he feels the urge to weep. He figures that’s pretty apropos considering the circumstances, but his increasingly confused thoughts are able to come together enough for him to realize that it’s actually not his own imminent death that’s spawned the feeling. It’s Sherlock, Sherlock running alone, Sherlock going off without him. He thinks _That’s not how it was supposed to go_ , then drifts away on a sea of blackness.

* * *

_It happened like this…_

John’s so bloody pissed at Sherlock, he can barely even think straight. He fucking went off without John (again!), got himself fucking kidnapped, got himself fucking injured, then, yeah, okay, got himself un-kidnapped, then texted John like it was a fucking Sunday canter in the park to come and join him and decidedly did _not_ warn John that there were ex-Sherlock-kidnappers wandering around looking for a second victim. Jesus _Christ_ is he pissed.

He’s tied up in the boot of a car that’s jouncing along on an unpaved road, listening to two men up front (he’s dubbed them Tweedledee and Tweedledum) make coarse jokes and laugh in a way that makes his lip curl and his teeth itch. They’re listening to some awful station that plays “new music”, which is not helping his mood _at all_. He twists and turns his wrists, trying to get some sort of room to maneuver, but they can’t be complete idiots (despite the Neanderthal hur-hur-hur sound of their laughter) because they’ve used zip-ties.

So after awhile, he just lays there and tries to think about all the horrible ways he’s going to make Sherlock suffer when he sees him again. Bin all his experiments. Mess up his sock index. Wash his suits in hot water. Tell Molly to ban him from the morgue for a few weeks. Change his ringtone to _All you Need is Love_. Put Nair in his fancy shampoo. Something good, he doesn’t know.

This pleasant train of thought helps center him and so he keeps it up until he feels the car jerk to a stop and hears the engine shut off. He hears two car doors open and one slam shut again. A voice moves from the left side of the car, around the boot, then stops on the right hand side. There’s a murmured conversation, then, without hearing the engine start again, he feels the car start to roll forward, slowly at first, then picking up speed. Uh-oh.

There’s a slow downward roll of the car, then a sudden stop and a splash, and John’s thrown forward in the boot. He starts struggling a little more earnestly, listening with dread to the gushing gurgle of water flowing. The front of the car tips downward and he can feel it bob a bit. The rushing gets louder. The radio is now playing Adele’s _Someone Like You_ , and he’s so incredibly calm that he can think _Well, at least it’s a song I actually like_. His impending demise now has a soundtrack. He wants to giggle.

He keeps fighting his bonds even though he knows its pointless, because, hey, he’s John Watson, and he’s never surrendered in his life (except about that one experiment with the skunk extract, but he wanted Sherlock to learn a little lesson). The water slowly engulfs him from back to front, sliding coolly up over his belly, his shoulders, then finally his head. He buys himself a few more seconds by tipping his face back to keep it in a pocket of air, but that doesn’t last long.

It’s very quiet with his head underwater, the radio long since gone silent. He needs to breathe again all too quickly, but he still manages to keep himself relatively calm. His mind is filled with the fact that he’s dying alone, that Sherlock isn’t even _here_ , and he always knew Sherlock would get him killed, but he figured at least they’d be together when it happened.

* * *

_It happened like this…_

They weren’t even on a case, just out for a nice dinner at the local and now he’s lying flat on his back and Sherlock’s holding pressure on the wound, but it doesn’t matter. Jugular veins are too big and there’s no time. He’d thought they had all the time in the world, which just goes to show you how stupid people can be when they’re happy. At least he’d told Sherlock. They’d had barely any time together at all, but he’d told him, so that’s all right then.

Sherlock’s pushing so hard he’s practically cutting off John’s air supply and John can see the panic written all over his face, feel it in the frantic clutch of his fingers at John’s neck, so he doesn’t push him off, doesn’t say that there’s no help for it. He can hear Sherlock shouting at him to _stay, stay with me, John, don’t you fucking dare!_ , but there’s nothing to do, nothing that can be done. He lifts one hand and places it on Sherlock’s still locked together at his neck, and Sherlock immediately shuts up and looks at him with an expression of complete despair.

John knows how he feels, but he’s not going to waste these last few seconds on regret, not going to waste his last words on this earth talking about what might have been. He looks into the eyes of the person he loves more than anyone else who has ever lived or will ever live, and he says the only thing that matters. He says it again and again, until he has no more breath left to say anything at all.

* * *

_It happened like this…_

John recognizes the bomb for what it is about three seconds before Sherlock does. If you told that to someone who didn’t know them very well it would be completely unrealistic (who’s the genius detective in this relationship?), but John’s got a few things in his favor when it comes to identifying explosive devices. One, he saw far, _far_ too many of them in Afghanistan, particularly of the improvised kind that they’re looking at now. Two, he’s got a much better sense of self-preservation than Sherlock does (admittedly, that’s not saying very bloody much). And, three, Sherlock’s closer to the shoebox than he is, so his sensitivity towards potential danger is ratcheted up to high.

He probably would have looked like a complete moron if he’d been wrong, but he isn’t wrong, so he just looks like a hero (martyr?). He darts forward, grabs Sherlock around the waist, whirls him around and throws him to the ground, dropping like a ton of bricks onto his back. He instinctively braces himself and squinches his eyes shut, but he can still feel all of Sherlock’s breath leave his body in a massive _woosh_ , feel the cold damp of snow under the hands he’s placed protectively on either side of Sherlock’s body, feel the nubbly broadcloth of Sherlock’s coat under his cheek. Everything is so crystal clear.

The bomb goes off like, well, a bomb. Luckily (is that the right word?) for Sherlock, it’s not loaded with explosives. If it had been full of C4 or even something archaic like dynamite, they both would have been toast. However, it’s mostly full of nails, glass, and twisted pieces of metal with a little bit of propellant to send everything flying. John gets the full force of the blast to his back, hundreds of bits of shrapnel shredding clothing and embedding into his tender flesh all at once. He’s killed instantly, no time to muse over his situation, lost chances, taken chances, or anything at all.

* * *

_It happened like this…_

John spends every day exactly the same way. He gets up at 7am. He turns off his alarm clock, stumbles into the loo, pisses, showers under the hottest water he can tolerate, shaves. He doesn’t look in the mirror any more than he absolutely has to. He wanders into the kitchen, makes himself toast and tea, forces himself to eat (he’s not a hypocrite). He stares out the window until it’s time for him to leave for work.

John takes the 8:12 tube, travels four stations east, gets off, and walks two blocks to the surgery. He treats a myriad of commonplace ailments and injuries which are forever different and forever the same. He does his job quietly, methodically, and with little visible emotion. His patients have no opinion on the subject and do not ask him why he never smiles and why his hand (the left hand, the one with the wedding ring on it) always shakes.

At the end of his day he reverses his morning journey. He may stop at the local Tesco on his way to his bedsit. He may not. He may decide to get take away. He may not. He may decide to cook. He may not. He will most certainly clean his gun, but he will not use it (he’s not a hypocrite). He could stop for a pint if he wanted to, call a friend to chat if he wanted to, write an entry in his blog if he wanted to, but he doesn’t want to. He spends every day exactly the same way and knows he’ll spend every day to come exactly the same way until his body finally realizes that he’s been dead for years now and gives up and lets him rest in peace.

* * *

_It’s happening like this…_

John wakes with a start from a dream of sand with Sherlock’s name on his lips. The other side of the bed is still made and, logically, he knows this simply means Sherlock never came to bed, but John’s never been a very logical man. He doesn’t waste time trying to calm his fears. Instead he gets up and stumbles out into the well-lit living room.

Sherlock’s lying on the couch in his pyjamas and dressing gown, one leg sprawled up along the back, the other dangling loosely on the floor. His fingers are steepled together under his chin. His eyes open and his gaze darts to John as he enters the room. He takes one raking look at John’s face and body and the corner of his mouth twitches minutely downward. He scoots up a little, making space.

John hesitates, thinking of tea, then walks over to the couch. He sits between Sherlock’s legs and slumps over so he’s half lying next to him, half curled on his chest. Sherlock’s arms wrap around him and pull him close. John sighs and relaxes into the warmth and comfort, feels a kiss pressed to the top of his head. His eyes close and he listens to Sherlock’s heart beat.

John adores these moments of quiet, just the two of them. He’ll always love the cases, always love running after Sherlock, fantastic deductions, the danger, the insanity, the hard brilliance that makes up the majority of their life together. Still, it takes the one to make him appreciate the other. It’s the contrast that gives these times of softness their meaning.

He feels so treasured, so safe, wrapped in his lover’s embrace and enfolded between the walls of 221B like a character protected by the pages of their storybook. It makes him imagine they’ll go on forever. No matter what happens to anyone else, to everyone else, they’ll always be here. 

Sometimes John thinks about what the distant future might hold for them both. He has hopes he hasn’t yet discussed with Sherlock involving country cottages, beehives, the occasional case, maybe even non-homicide-related travel. But all that can wait. It’s so far away, really; regardless of what he knows of the inevitability of aging, sometimes it seems like it will never come, that nothing will change the endless string of extraordinary days. He snuggles closer to Sherlock, nuzzling gently at the lapel of his dressing gown.

There’s so much time.

**Author's Note:**

> I know 5+1 has been done to death, but I love to read them so I figured, what the hell, maybe you do, too. This story was inspired by the poem [221B](http://www.astudyinsherlock.net/2006/03/16/starrett-221b/) by Vincent Starrett, because if “only those things the heart _believes_ are true”, then our hearts are what make John and Sherlock real.


End file.
